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23
It would soon be dawn. As old Tanabai sat by the fire by the head of his dying
pacer he recalled all that followed.
No one knew that he had gone to the regional centre soon after. It was his last
attempt. He wanted to see the Secretary of the Regional Committee. He had heard
him speak at that conference at the district centre and he wanted to tell him
about his trouble. he believed that this man would understand him and help him.
Choro had spoken well of him, and others had praised him, too. It was not until
he arrived at the Regional Committee, however, that he discovered the Secretary
had been transferred to another region.
"Didn't you know?"
"No."
"Well, if it's very important I'll speak to our new Secretary, perhaps he'll be
able to see you," the secretary in the reception room said.
"No, thank you. It's a personal matter. You see, I knew him and he knew me. I
would never have bothered him otherwise. Thank you, anyway. Good-bye." He left
the building, sincerely believing that he had known the former Secretary well
and that the man had also known him, the shepherd Tanabai Bakasov. And why not?
They might have known and respected each other, he did not doubt it, that is why
he said what he did.
Tanabai walked down the street towards the bus stop. Two men were loading empty
beer barrels on a truck outside a beer stall. One was standing in the truck. The
one on the ground who was rolling a barrel up a board turned by chance, looked
at Tanabai as he passed, and froze. It was Bektai. He balanced the barrel on the
inclined board as his narrow wild-cat eyes stared with hatred, waiting to see
what Tanabai would say.
"What's the matter, are you sleeping?" the man in the truck said irritably.
The barrel was rolling down, Bektai tried to steady it, holding it back with an
effort, his eyes never leaving Tanabai. But Tanabai did not greet him. "So this
is where you are. Some place. No doubt about it. Right close up to the beer,"
Tanabai thought as he continued on his way. "The boy'll come to no good here,"
he then thought, slackening his step. "He could have been a fine man. What if I
have a talk with him?" And he wanted to turn back, he was sorry for Bektai, he
was ready to forgive him everything if only he came to his senses. However, he
did not turn. He realised that if Bektai knew he had been expelled from the
Party there would be no real conversation. Tanabai did not want to give this
sharp-tongued youth a chance to deride him, his life, the cause to which he
remained faithful. No, he did not turn back.
He picked up a ride home on a truck and kept thinking of Bektai. He could not
forget how the boy had tried to steady the slipping barrel, staring at him
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expectantly.
Later, when the collective farm took Bektai to court,
Tanabai was a witness. All he said, however, was that Bektai had abandoned his
flock and gone off. He did not want to say anything else. He so wanted Bektai to
realise he had been wrong and repent. But Bektai had no intention of repenting.
"When you're out, come over to my place. We'll see what we can do about the
future," Tanabai said to him. Becktai did not even answer. He never raised his
eyes. Tanabai walked off. He had lost his self-confidence since he had been
expelled from the Party, he was forever feeling guilty. He had become timid. He
never thought things would come to this. No one threw anything up to him, still,
he avoided people, he avoided conversation and kept to himself.
24
The pacer Gyulsary lay motionlessly by the campfire, his head on the ground.
Life was slowly leaving his body. Something was gurgling and wheezing in his
throat, his eyes widened and dimmed as he stared unblinkingly at the flames, his
legs, straight as poles, were becoming stiff.
Tanabai was bidding his pacer farewell, it was the last time he would be talking
to him. "You were a great stallion, Gyulsary. You were my friend, Gyulsary. When
you go you will carry away the best years of my life, Gyulsary. I will never
forget you, Gyulsary. You're still alive now, but I'm thinking of you as of one
dead already, because you are dying, my wonderful horse Gyulsary. Some day we'll
meet in the hereafter. But I won't hear the sound of your hoofbeats. There are
no roads there, no earth, no grass, there is no life there. But as long as I
live you will never die, because I will always remember you, Gyulsary. To me the
sound of your pacing gait will always be the song I love best."
Such were old Tanabai's thoughts. He was sad, for time had sped by like a
cantering pacer, they had both become old so quickly. Perhaps it was too soon
for Tanabai to think of himself as an old man. And yet, it is not the weight of
his years that makes a man old quite as much as the realisation that he is old,
that his time has passed, that he is living out his days.
Now, on this night, as his pacer lay dying, Tanabai looked back once again, more
keenly, more intently at the past, regretting that he had yielded to old age so
soon, that he had not followed the advice of the man who had not forgotten about
him after all, who had discovered his whereabouts and had come to see him.
It had happened seven years after he was expelled from the Party. At the time
Tanabai was the warden in charge of the collective farm's holdings in Sarygou
Gorge where he lived in a cottage with his wife Jaidar. First his daughters left
for school, then they married. His son, who had graduated from a technical
school, was working in the district centre and had a family of his own.
One day in summer Tanabai was mowing the grass along the river bank. It was a
fine day for mowing, hot and bright. It was very still in the gorge. Cicadas
were chirruping. Tanabai, wearing his shirt over his wide, white, old man's
trousers, followed the ringing scythe, cutting down a thick, close mane of grass
with each swinging movement. His work gave him infinite pleasure. He did not
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notice a jeep pull up nearby, two men get out and head towards him.
"Hello, Tanabai! Allah be with you!" The voice was but a few feet away. He
looked round and saw lbraim. He was still the same: quick in his movements,
round-cheeked and round-bellied. "See, we've found you after all, Tanabai," he
continued, grinning from ear to ear. "The District Committee Secretary himself
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